


light the candles, make a wish

by alexirrhoe



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, FE Gen Week, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Minor Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23753683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexirrhoe/pseuds/alexirrhoe
Summary: Felix's birthdays over the years.
Kudos: 19





	light the candles, make a wish

**Author's Note:**

> Written for FE Gen Week 2020, day 2- "birthday / teatime".
> 
> Thanks to Isa for the beta, this fic wouldn't exist without you and I hope you know that I love you <3

Glenn dies a month before Felix's fourteenth birthday.

His grief is a furious and wounded creature growling in the pit of his stomach. He refuses to speak to his father and ignores his friends for weeks. A world without Glenn isn't a world he has any interest in.

So he trains.

His days are all the same: he wakes up and goes to the training ground, dedicating himself to his sword in the morning and to his bow in the afternoons. The days seem to pass faster when one spends them training as their life depends on it. It leaves you with no time to think, no time to grieve.

One month after the Tragedy of Duscur, his father comes to see him in the training grounds. Felix still hasn't spoken to him, nor has he answered Sylvain's worried letters.

"Happy Birthday, my son", Rodrigue says.

Felix doesn't spare him a glance, waiting for him to leave. He won't admit it, but he hadn't realized it was already the 20th of the Pegasus Moon. He didn't think that the Glenn-shaped hole in his stomach would still be so wide.

Behind him, Rodrigue sighs, at loss with what to do with his youngest child. There's nothing that Felix can do to help him with that.

"Listen." There is a small clatter. Felix looks up to see that his father has dropped a thin and long package on the ground. "Glenn bought this for you months ago, he was waiting for your birthday to give it to you."

Felix, who could hold a sword before he even knew how to talk, recognizes the shape. He remains silent under Rodrigue' scrutiny, careful to not let out his fury.

The worst of it is that he knows what sword it is.

He vividly remembers seeing a simple yet fine and well-balanced blade, with a pommel carved in the shape of a lion, at a merchant's stall. Glenn was with him that day and couldn't have missed the envy in his brother's eyes, even if he always pretended not to pay him any attention. A week later, the sword was sold and a smug smile had danced on his brother's lips when Felix had asked about it. Glenn had always been a bad liar, especially when he was proud of himself.

Back to the present, Rodrigue is watching him with expectation.

"Thanks," he mutters, not to his father and certainly not to a brother who has no right to be dead. He goes back to his training, leaving the gift untouched.

Rodrigue sighs again, and leaves him to his desperate training.

* * *

On the 20th of the Pegasus Moon 1180, Felix turns eighteenth. The same age Glenn was when he died.

A letter from Rodrigue arrived the day before but he hasn't opened it. He doesn't plan to.

He leaves his room at dawn, trying to avoid Sylvain (easy, the idiot tends to sleep until late after spending his evenings with women) and Ingrid (trickier, he's almost surprised not to see her, waiting in front of his door, ready to lecture him about how he shouldn't spend his birthday training) and makes a beeline to the training grounds.

Months ago, Jeritza used to be there before him but since Flayn's abduction, the training grounds have been empty when Felix gets there.

The Boar Prince arrives but leaves promptly after seeing Felix, blood boiling and visibly wishing for nothing more than a fight, send him a glare full of fury and anger.

Later, he hears footsteps and looks up, expecting Dimitri again but this time it's a feminine figure who’s watching him.

"Felix, could you come with me for a second?", the Professor says.

* * *

Felix doesn't know what he expected but it certainly wasn't a tea time with the Ashen Demon in a flowery garden, a plate full of overly sweet pastries placed in front of him.

"I have tea with all my students on their birthdays," Byleth explains, her expression as unreadable as ever.

"I'm not the type to celebrate."

"I had guessed."

Felix snorts at her humour. It is dry as the Sreng Desert. The tea is nice, he has to admit, even if he wonders how the Professor knew Almyran Pine Needles was his favourite.

The conversation is pleasant enough, they talk about weapons and equipment upkeep. She congratulates him on the last sword technique he mastered and Felix may or may not be blushing a little. They sip their tea in companionable silence, only disturbed by the _clink_ of Byleth's teacup against her saucer. When Felix looks up, she's watching him carefully, as if debating if now is the right moment to bring up an unpleasant topic.

"Your classmates wanted to throw you a birthday party." He makes a move as if to stand up, but she adds: "Sylvain dissuaded them."

"Well, this idiot was right, for once."

She purses her lips in a rare show of expression and motions for him to sit down.

"Felix, your friends care about you. They are worried about you."

Ah. The "friends are good, friends are important" lecture, again.

"Listen," he scowls. "If you are here to tell me that friendship is magic and all that nonsense, don't bother. Seteth already took care of that."

"Judging by your reaction, I don't think he succeeded, did he?"

He wants to retort that it doesn't matter, it's not like convincing him that he should be more sociable or acknowledge the so-called power of friendship is something that one could successfully do. That friendship or loyalty or chivalry aren't things that can save your life on a battlefield, not in the way that training can and that he could prove it to her right now, right here, if he had a sword.

"For a former mercenary, you like meddling in our affairs way too much", he says instead.

She delicately raises her eyebrows.

"Why? I'm devoted to the well-being of my students."

For a moment, he's taken aback, not realizing that she's joking; then he spots the shadow of a smile at the corner of her lips.

She drops the topic and resumes their conversation about their last battle.

He's glad for it.

* * *

There is no party but he finds an apple cake in the dining hall, with a handwritten note that says "For everyone" in Mercedes's gracious writing and, in Annette's loopier one, "It isn't too sweet, I promise!!". Based on the fact that the kitchen didn't blow up, he assumes that Dedue helped them.

Later, he finds in front of his room a book with a note from Ashe tucked inside. Between the pages, he finds a sword-shaped bookmark, a precious and delicate object which can only come from Dimitri. Felix dislikes receiving something from the Boar but it would be too much of a bother to refuse the gift.

He isn't surprised, upon entering his room, to find out that Ingrid and Sylvain are already there. There was no way they would have left him alone today.

They watch him with cautious eyes, Ingrid as if she's looking for something under his neutral expression, Sylvain in his usual indecipherable way. What he sees seems to please him, because he spreads a board game on the floor.

"Listen, we won't say anything about your birthday if you don't want us to," Ingrid promises. "But there's no way we're going to leave you alone tonight so let's play a game together, ok?"

Felix can already see how it'll go: they'll get crushed by Sylvain's superior strategizing brain, Ingrid won't take it well like the sore loser she is, and the two of them will end up yelling at each other (or, more likely, Ingrid will yell at Sylvain and Sylvain will hide behind Felix's petite frame as if he weren't taller than him). He can say goodbye to any hope he had of a quiet evening.

"Hmph," he shrugs, ready to deny that a smile might have appeared on his lips.

* * *

There is no time for celebration in wartime. His nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first birthdays go by unnoticed.

It's better this way.

* * *

Felix turns twenty-two today, an age Glenn will never be. It hurts but less than it used to. Maybe it's thanks to the passing of time. Maybe it's a side effect of the war. Felix isn't one to dwell on it.

Birthday or not, he's ready to go to the training grounds well before dawn, as he's been doing every morning since the Millennium festival, when Sylvain barges into his room. He hugs him tightly and Felix returns it with an automatism born from Pavlovian conditioning.

"Happy birthday," Sylvain whispers to his ear. He only sounds half awake.

"Are you hiding from Ingrid?"

Sylvain has stopped his womanizer behaviour lately, but Felix wouldn't be surprised by a relapse.

"No, I wanted to be the first to wish you a happy birthday!"

He sounds outraged that Felix didn't realize it sooner. Felix can only shrug, he can't see the appeal in being the first to do something so trivial but Sylvain is petty like that.

"And I may also be fleeing from the kitchen maid, but that's not the main reason I'm here," Sylvain adds, his voice muted by Felix's shirt. "Anyway, you get up way too early Fe."

"You would too if you trained correctly."

That's a bit of an unfair statement, Felix knows Sylvain stays up very late every night, strategizing with the professor and Dimitri.

Sylvain pulls away from Felix's stiff returned embrace and yawns loudly, kicking his shoes before making himself at home in Felix's bed.

Felix should be on his way, training awaits him but he can't help but watch Sylvain, who's already fallen back asleep. Their relationship has evolved those past few months and morphed into something indescribable yet but inevitable. Felix doesn't dwell on it too much. First, there is a war to win, then they'll see. He isn't worried. They made a promise to stick together until the end, after all.

* * *

He's taking a break after hours spent sparing with Leonie and Dimitri when the Professor shows up at the training grounds. Felix isn't too surprised.

"A birthday tea time again?"

She laughs. She's so expressive now, like she's making up for all those years she spent showing no emotion.

"I'm under the very strict duty to keep you away from the party your friends are preparing for you in the dining hall. Tea could be an option, but I thought you might prefer to spare, if Dimitri hasn't worn you out?"

As if.

"Well, this is a perfect opportunity to check if my victory last time was a fluke."

* * *

The party is nice, he has to admit. Maybe they should have thrown him one sooner.

Lysithea baked him a birthday cake and hovers over him, insisting that she created the recipe especially for him and his tastes and please, can he tell her if it's good?

"Mmm," is his answer. The cake isn't too sweet and is light and airy with a bit of lemony flavour. It's what you'd call a sponge cake, he thinks. "It's ok."

"I knew you'd love it!", she exclaims, clapping her hands. "By the way, did you know our birthdays are only a week apart? Mine is on the 28th. Maybe we could celebrate them together next year?"

If they all survive the war (he is starting to think that there is hope, between the Professeur's tactics and Dimitri being back to his old self), he would like to do that. He doesn't have time to reply though because Bernadetta puts a black and white cat in his arms, saying he looks like Felix, all claws out but the sweetest purring kitty once tamed and _is that a smile I see on your face Felix? Definitely a smile!_

Annette confesses that she has come up with new songs if he would like to listen to them, but much to his disappointment, they aren't about what happens to the library after it blows up. Flayn insists he puts on a show and chops some fruits she's throwing at him, and telling her no, right under Seteth's watchful eyes, seems too risky.

From the corner of his eyes, he can see all of his friends, Dimitri talking in a low voice with the Professor, Mercedes and Dorothea quietly laughing at Ingrid chasing after a scared Sylvain, Dedue and Ashe sat together in that quiet little world of theirs.

Felix isn't one to change his mind and will never be.

However, he knows to admit when he's wrong and maybe, maybe the Professor and Seteth were right. Maybe friendship is something he'll learn to cherish, starting from now.


End file.
